Personal reflections and revelations

You Might be Tapped

During the last five plus years I have lived in my apartment I have always experienced slow, unstable internet. I tried replacing my modem with little improvement. I even tried changing my plan from DSL to fiber optic internet, but no such luck. When I called my service provider their only suggestion was to upgrade again. Maybe a more expensive plan would speed things up. Then I remembered that the man who installed my fiber optic internet had given me his cell phone number and told me to call if I had any problems, so I called and he was willing to take a look.

When Dan arrived he ran a diagnostic test, and he found that the previous tenants had tapped the phone line to create a second line in the kitchen. This had caused an 85 percent loss of stability. All of this time I had no idea that it didn’t matter what I did to help improve the speed and dependability of my internet connection, it would always be unstable if the tap was there. Dan pulled the couch out and unscrewed the cover to the telephone jack. Underneath he found the extra wires that had been tapped into the main line. He held them up, saying he would remove them and throw them in the trash, like a surgeon removing a tumor. Afterward he put everything back, and we tried out the connection. First, I turned on Netflix. It ran fine and loaded quickly. Then I logged into Snapfish. Uploading photos was never so fast. Lastly, we played three YouTube videos simultaneously and looked at Google street view plus Netflix and Snapfish; not a single interruption.

Our lives are like that main phone line. When we stay in relationship with God we cannot be shaken. As my pastor explained yesterday, we are not controlled by our emotions and we know our identity and purpose. We also consider how our actions effect the big picture, including other people. But instability is inevitable when we let our burdens and emotions tap into our relationship with God. We make excuses, like “I’m too busy for God” or “God knows I love Him.” These are just symptoms of the bigger issue of being spiritually tapped, or what my pastor called “spiritual blindness.” Once we’ve diagnosed it, we can cut it out and throw it away so we have a stable connection to our Lord.

Feeling tapped? Pray about it, tell a trustworthy friend or pastor, and do your best to cut it out of your spiritual life. People say God is the great physician. I’m here to say, He’s a fantastic surgeon, and He can remove whatever is in the way of you being in relationship with Him.